dissatisfied with skimmer...let's talk filtration options for a LPS tank.

[Devaji]

Maybe your skimmer isn't pulling much because there isn't much to pull. Is there anything aside from LPS in the tank, and if not, do you add coral food? As I am sure you already know, a skimmer does nothing for nitrates and phosphates that are already in the water. The point of a skimmer is to pull detritus before it decays into N&P.

I have thought about that too. but compairing the bubbles to the RO skimmer in the other tank. they just seem off small tinny bubble that dont produce a good foam head.

 

[exnisstech]

very nice tan

very nice tanks!!
look at the delicious LR in the sump. wower...haha
did you seed the ATS or just let the turf grow?

with the one on my larger tank Fish only i did seed it with some GHA from the smaller tank.

Vintage reefer beat me to it but no I did not seed it.
All the rock came out of my 180 I broke down. Much of it is old ocean rock from when I started the hobby about 8 years ago. I'm running a cryptic fuge in the sump growing sponges and other cool stuff. I'm sure all that rock played a huge roll in being able to start with all dry rock barebottom in the display but not get the uglies.
The surf 4 ATS is perfect for my purpose since I need darkness for the cryptic area. Once it gets algae growing it has little to no light spill.

 

[Devaji]

Vintage reefer beat me to it but no I did not seed it.
All the rock came out of my 180 I broke down. Much of it is old ocean rock from when I started the hobby about 8 years ago. I'm running a cryptic fuge in the sump growing sponges and other cool stuff. I'm sure all that rock played a huge roll in being able to start with all dry rock barebottom in the display but not get the uglies.
The surf 4 ATS is perfect for my purpose since I need darkness for the cryptic area. Once it gets algae growing it has little to no light spill.

I did seed my other ATS with GHA from this tank its growing great. how knows if I will ever get true turf or not but it is going its job.

 

[VintageReefer]

GHA will slow the process

 

[VintageReefer]

I should correct my statement. You can’t seed a scrubber with turf algae. The turf that grows is unique to your system

Taking turf algae from one scrubber and putting in another rarely works.

Gha grows in almost any condition, so that will work. But then your growing gha instead of turf which is more effective. The turf will eventually take over but you need to keep removing the gha growth

 

[keithw283]

I should correct my statement. You can’t seed a scrubber with turf algae. The turf that grows is unique to your system

Taking turf algae from one scrubber and putting in another rarely works.

Gha grows in almost any condition, so that will work. But then your growing gha instead of turf which is more effective. The turf will eventually take over but you need to keep removing the gha growth

How often do you clean your ATS? Never had one but considering putting one on my 240 once it's up and running as my main source of filtration

 

[VintageReefer]

How often do you clean your ATS? Never had one but considering putting one on my 240 once it's up and running as my main source of filtration

There’s no exact answer, it’s more of a range. Every 7-14 days is typical for most people. If your a few days late or early it doesn’t matter

 

[keithw283]

There’s no exact answer, it’s more of a range. Every 7-14 days is typical for most people. If your a few days late or early it doesn’t matter

considering the surf 4x with the Danner AP-4 air pump since that's what they recommend. I've heard good things about Santa Monica and every time I look up algae scrubbers I end up on a post with you praising them as highly as you do lol.

 

[VintageReefer]

considering the surf 4x with the Danner AP-4 air pump since that's what they recommend. I've heard good things about Santa Monica and every time I look up algae scrubbers I end up on a post with you praising them as highly as you do lol.

Air pump recommendations

Air Pump Recommendations for UAS® upflow algae scrubbers® Edited August 24, 2024 Danner AP-4 (has 2 outlets, and a control knob) Danner AP-8 (has 4 outlets, and a control knob) Danner is just one brand of these very common pumps; any other pump that looks similar will work. Danner...

algaescrubber.net

See post 3

 

[VintageReefer]

considering the surf 4x with the Danner AP-4 air pump since that's what they recommend. I've heard good things about Santa Monica and every time I look up algae scrubbers I end up on a post with you praising them as highly as you do lol.

Surf 4 in action on post 11 of this thread

 

[keithw283]

Air pump recommendations

Air Pump Recommendations for UAS® upflow algae scrubbers® Edited August 24, 2024 Danner AP-4 (has 2 outlets, and a control knob) Danner AP-8 (has 4 outlets, and a control knob) Danner is just one brand of these very common pumps; any other pump that looks similar will work. Danner...

algaescrubber.net

See post 3

thank you for pointing that out. I would have got the 4 for sure

 

[Devaji]

GHA will slow the process

I did not know this...
well its doing a great job on the FO system keeping GHA out of the DT we be interesting to see how/when/if it turns into turf.

 

[Devaji]

How often do you clean your ATS? Never had one but considering putting one on my 240 once it's up and running as my main source of filtration

I clean my newish water fall scrubber ( icecap pro med.) on a 200 gallon FOWLR system every 2 weeks

the scrubber is still new under 3 months for sure prob/ around the 2 month mark. I forget honestly but I have done 2 cleaning.

all in all I am a huge fan of ATS for aquariums.
made a DIY upflow years ago that worked.

 

[Devaji]

Here some pics of my 1st and 2nd harvest on the water fall scrubber on the 200 pen. FO system.

1st cleaning:

2nd cleaning:

you can see there is a water flow issue on one side of the screen. working on fixing that. but not mad for two cleaning.

leaning very much towards an ATS for the RS 300 over a new skimmer. just need to decide between SM surf and another icecap pro or the ebay algae clean brand.
all have the pros and cons.

 

[VintageReefer]

You’re growing slime algae which is normal for scrubbers in early stages but the slime will prevent turf from growing

Slime is extremely nutrient dense, but should be cleaned off very frequently because it is slippery and prevents turf from rooting and becoming established

 

[Devaji]

You’re growing slime algae which is normal for scrubbers in early stages but the slime will prevent turf from growing

Slime is extremely nutrient dense, but should be cleaned off very frequently because it is slippery and prevents turf from rooting and becoming established

yes it;s very nutrient dense for sure. dont mind the slime there. but excited to see it grow in over time.

 

[Charles Zinn]

TLDR skimmers not works great replace or go with ATS as main filtration.

the long and short of it. I set up a RS 300Xl to be a seahorse tank. I beefed up the filtration with
UV, way over sized skimmer, have a reef mat but dont use it.

got a bunch of macro algae in, tank looged great for months but was having problems sorcing all female SH so decided to just to a LPS reef focusing on meats and torchs/frogspawn

the macros melted duping a ton of N&P in to the tank. had algae issues ever since been 6 months now.

anyway i dont like my coral box skimmer just don't feel it right for this system. maybe it's to big IDK but just not skimming right. just produces junk in the neck cup. the bubbles are no where near and nice as other skimmers I have had. yes I have played around with it.

plumbed in the reef mat but ran without fleece for months just took it out of the tank,for some reason I dont want to use it. maybe its being tied to rolls of fleece? silly for me to buy it but not use it but here we are. feels to big and bulky. IDK

here is where I am at:
option 1
sale the reef mat and skimmer and go full ATS! for some reason I love this idea. always been a huge fan of them. I have the icecap pro medium on my FOWLR along with a great reef otco. skimmer tanks looks great!

option 2:
replace the coral box skimmer with the reef octo int. regal 200 SSS skimer and cal it a day. the reef ocots always do a great job.

IDK just thinking out loud here I know more people use the classic skimmer and filter socks and it works.

and then there are other that use ATS only for there filtration...

both work just got to decide on what way I want to go...so I thought I would talk to other reefers here.

TLDR skimmers not works great replace or go with ATS as man filtration.

Not familar with TDLR skimmer. had red sea skimmer found they can be lacking in nutrient reduction of fish heavy system. I switch to ocho skimmer helped some. fine tuned system, water heigh, water flow in tank in relation to weir in over flow. also found increased flow and ech0-teeh mp pump set to nutrient export got nutrients into water column and reduced nutrients. good luck

 

[VintageReefer]

Not familar with TDLR skimmer. had red sea skimmer found they can be lacking in nutrient reduction of fish heavy system. I switch to ocho skimmer helped some. fine tuned system, water heigh, water flow in tank in relation to weir in over flow. also found increased flow and ech0-teeh mp pump set to nutrient export got nutrients into water column and reduced nutrients. good luck

TLDR is Internet abbreviation for too long, didn’t read

 

[Devaji]

still on the fence what I want to do here. been thinking about carbon dosing too.

@VintageReefer how long are you finding the surfs ATS to go from new to full blown turf? I know every system is different but you seem to be the expert on these...
figured you might have some idea.

I took out one of the AI blads so my lighting is now at 50% only corals I have are gorgs. two of with I am loosing due to algae build up.

i'll post some tank/skimmer pics today.

 

[VintageReefer]

still on the fence what I want to do here. been thinking about carbon dosing too.

@VintageReefer how long are you finding the surfs ATS to go from new to full blown turf? I know every system is different but you seem to be the expert on these...
figured you might have some idea.

I took out one of the AI blads so my lighting is now at 50% only corals I have are gorgs. two of with I am loosing due to algae build up.

i'll post some tank/skimmer pics today.

From brand new to full on makin it’s own algae colony is usually a month. It will start to offer filtration assistance in about 2-3 weeks and be at full power around week 4. Possibly week 5. Somewhere in there

@exnisstech how long did your surf4 take to become established ?